


A Line Out To Sea

by cityofsilver



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beach, California, M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cityofsilver/pseuds/cityofsilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beach AU. Ryan is in college and spends most of his time sulking. Then he meets someone who makes smoothies by the beach, and maybe he sulks a little less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Line Out To Sea

 

_Mission Beach, 2009_

 

The wind changes direction and a seagull lands on the wooden railing that Ryan is leaning over, his face down towards the sand below.

His palms are steady on the railing as he slowly straightens, and the bird remains still besides a twitch in it’s wings. Ryan turns to meet the bird’s flickering gaze and he could swear that the bird looks him right in the eye. His hair gets in the way of his eyesight as the soft wind brought in by the Pacific hits him, and he feels at almost peace. This time of the morning was his favorite; the time of the morning when there was few people around, and it was quiet enough to have staring competitions with birds. He turns his head and squints into the distance at the endless stretch of pathway, and he can spot some early morning walkers out with their golden retrievers, revelling in the quiet, just like he was.

It was seven in the morning on Mission Beach, and the sun was still hidden by the white cloud, surfers were already on out on the new waves, and scruffy beach guys were starting to open up their breakfast bars along the boardwalk. Ryan sighs, and pushes off from the railing, hitching his bag up higher on his shoulder. He has college books in it even though his class doesn’t start till noon, but the bag gives him a sense of purpose that he knows he is severely lacking.

After several steps he turns back, just slightly, and the seagull is gone.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The line is clear, but it’s then quickly replaced by static. He pulls the phone away from his ear and holds it up a bit, to see if it helps.

“Ryan,” Spencer’s voice is tinny and sounds exasperated. “Where the hell are you? On top of a mountain in India?”

Ryan snorts, a low sound at the back of his throat. He puts the phone back to his ear. “Incorrect. I’m in the Australian outback.”

“Seriously, man, where are you?”

Ryan hums, and looks around for clues. “I don’t really know.”

Spencer’s irritation transforms into concern. “What? You don’t know where you are?”

“No, I mean. I’m in a coffee shop. I dunno what it’s called.” The tiny hole-in-the-wall café is almost deserted, and the barista at the counter looks up and lifts one perfectly-curved eyebrow at Ryan. A radio or background music would be nice.

“So how is school? Have you gone to all the parties yet, embraced the college life?”

Ryan thinks that for all Spencer knows him, he clearly doesn’t remember him well enough, or else he’s just in denial. Still, he figures Spencer must expect it when Ryan laughs, dry and sarcastic. “No, I wake up and sit on the beach until I have to go to class, I go to class, and then I go home and sit on the beach again. Sometimes the class and beach pattern is reversed. And then I sleep.”

Ryan can hear Spencer sigh through the phone and he doesn’t try to hide it. “Are you alright, Ryan? You sound sort of --’’

He cuts his sentence short and pauses. “I just worry about you, dude. You should make some friends or something, spending that much time in your head was never really good for you.”

Spencer still knew him, then. And it pisses him off, because all this was easy for Spencer to say, Spencer who got his fancy scholarship to UCLA and didn’t look back once as he packed his and Ryan’s long-term friendship into a bag and headed to Los Angeles four months ago, leaving Ryan alone in the suburbs of San Diego. Not that Ryan hung around there for long. He moved straight to a shabby apartment at the far end of Mission, but at least he wasn’t running into childhood memories at every street corner. Spencer’s absence wasn’t as sharp.

Still though, Spencer hadn’t screwed up his opportunities and declined college offers when he graduated highschool. He hadn’t been arrogant enough to wait two years before finally enrolling in community college downtown. He didn’t have non-existent parents. Most importantly, he hadn’t had a best friend who left him. Spencer didn’t know what this kind of emptiness felt like.

It didn’t matter though, it never matters. Ryan was fine. He tells Spencer as much, in almost every phone call. “Don’t worry, Spence. I’m just fine.”

He was fine.

His voice was dry and Spencer didn’t quite believe him, but he was fine.

 

* * *

 

 

He finds the smoothie bar like he finds every other place; he stumbles in one day and stays there.

It’s placed at his end of the boardwalk, near the turnoff that Ryan takes home, so near that he’s surprised he’s never noticed it before. The front of it is open plan, with windowless windows and a seating area outside. The inside is cool with air conditioning, and the radio is playing crappy hits from several years ago. There’s seats along the bar, as well as booths on the side. The walls are covered in the usual beach-bar crap, things like striped floats and an anchor are hung up, but Ryan’s scrutiny is cut short when he catches the gaze of the barista, a young guy around his age, maybe younger.

“Hey, welcome to Gelateria Smoothies. Can I get you anything?”

It’s obviously rehearsed and systematic but his voice is deep and warm and friendly, and it makes Ryan walk up to the counter properly. He can’t quite remember what he came here for, if it was for smoothies or just to look around. “Hi, uh, what do you-?”

The guy jumps at the chance, and smiles. Ryan blinks rapidly. “We have smoothies, every flavour really except berry, because we’re all out, sorry about that, we have ice-cream, we have fruit salad, energy drinks –“

“I’ll have a banana smoothie?” He looks up at the menu in a daze. “With like, almonds?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question, but it does. The boy smiles, again. He has dark black floppy sort of hair, with dark eyes to match and his face is lit up in counterpoint to it all.

“Sure thing, coming right up.” Before he spins around to start making the drink, Ryan catches his nametag, hung haphazardly on his stained apron; _Brendon._ He stores that somewhere in his brain.

The sound of the machines starting up kicks Ryan back into reality, and he moves to go sit in a booth by the front, where he still can see the sea. The sun rising is on full view this morning; there are no clouds for it to hide behind.

“Hey, Brendon, what’d you do with the extension cable?” Ryan glances up, and a tall, lanky guy steps in from the backroom, his long hair falling over his eyes.

The barista, Brendon, shrugs and removes the lid of the blender and messes around with cups and lids. “Nothing, I haven’t seen it. Why, you wanna plug your hair curler in?”

The guy leans over and pinches Brendon in the hip, who jumps back and yelps in response. “Get away from me, fucker! I’m working, god.” His voice is filled with laughter and it emanates through the bar, right into Ryan’s bones.

Stepping back, the taller boy looks up and sweeps his eyes over the seats. His gaze lands on Ryan, who averts his gaze quickly.

“Yeah,” the taller barista snorts. “Wouldn’t want to be caught horsing around on the job, or anything.” He turns and sidles back into the backroom, and Brendon gives his back a middle finger and finishes the preparation of the drink.

When he walks over to Ryan, carrying the smoothie with careful hands, Ryan gets to see him full-on – he has red sneakers and worn-looking jeans, only half visible under the apron. He looks about Ryan’s height, maybe smaller, and he smiles at Ryan as he sets it on the sticky plastic table in front of him. “Here you go, monsieur. Enjoy.”

Ryan opens his mouth to say thank you, but it dies on his throat. Brendon gives him a once-over that is clearly purposeful, and Ryan all of sudden feels very aware of what he’s wearing and what he looks like. He had pulled on the same jeans he wears most days; they were skinny, but they were what fit his bony body. The white shirt he was wearing was maybe a little small, but he was never good at distinguishing what should be thrown out and what should be kept.

But then Brendon turns away with a smile, and Ryan’s eventual murmur of “thank you” is probably not heard over the music and William’s mindless shout to Brendon from the backroom.

He drinks the smoothie as fast as he can and heads out like he has somewhere important to be soon, but after a block of stores he slows his steps, until he stops fully, and he sits down on a bench to avoid the oncoming movement of people. The day had properly begun and the boardwalk is crowded, and Ryan watches through sun squinted eyes as two pre-schoolers almost get run into by a group of teenage boys soaring through on stickered skateboards.

He breathes slowly, in and out. A smoothie bar. He could handle regular smoothies. A healthier alternative to whatever morning latte he was drinking on a daily basis further down the pier.

With the thought processed, he lifts himself up just as quickly as he sat down, pushes his hair away from his eyes and walks home; faster and slightly less morbidly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ryan doesn’t mean to frequent the smoothie bar as much as he does, but he does.

He brings his notebook with him on several occasions in hope of the words flowing easier while sitting in view of the sea and the smell of saltwater even more tangible than his apartment. It doesn’t work though, partly because of the terrible radio station the stereo was tuned into and mostly because of Brendon’s presence there three quarters of the time.

He didn’t think Brendon was _watching_ him exactly, but sometimes when Ryan flicks his eyes up at the counter it’s obvious when Brendon turns his head quickly to look at something else.  Brendon and his brown eyes distract the hell out of him, and he stops trying to write essays at the Gelateria smoothie hut.

He doesn’t think William or Brendon even know his name, doesn’t remember giving it to them, but he walks in one morning and Brendon says, “Hey, Ryan” like it’s completely natural. William starts saying it too, and Ryan doesn’t even bother trying to work out how they figured that one out.

Besides first name basis, they don’t know anything else about him and Ryan definitely doesn’t know anything about them. Maybe he wishes he knew more about Brendon, especially when Brendon lingers at his table slightly longer than necessary as he sets the drink down, comments idly on the weather, but Ryan is incapable of taking it further.

He didn’t realize it would be so difficult, so he leaves it be.

 

* * *

 

 

When Ryan gets home from college he usually trails home and stays put for the night, catching up with his insanely long list of texts he has to read each semester. Spencer used to phone almost every night when he first moved, but calls much less frequently now the term has started. Ryan doesn’t think about the implications too much.

It was a Thursday when there was something about the way the sun had set that made him angry and restless, something about the bus slowly pulling it’s way out of the city that made him eager to move.

He finally gets home and before he allows himself to think, he dumps his stuff, closes the windows and locks his door. He clambers down the stairs, the slap of his converse against the concrete steps making him cringe. He shimmies his way down the narrow pathway, avoids stepping on the cracks in the pavement, and he’s on Mission Boulevard again, except it was now 10pm and dark.

If he’s honest with himself he’s only been out here this late a handful of times – and one of those times was when he nicked his hand really bad on a breadknife and had to run to CVS for plasters and antiseptic.

So it was understandable, then, that he had no idea where he was going as he traipsed down the street, his eyes fanning over the people everywhere, lining the curbs as they crossed roads, shouting out to their friends, surfer dudes carrying their boards back home with a six pack of beer tucked under their arms, bars and clubs radiating bass lines and more drunk, young people.

He is more than out of his depth, but in some unfound burst of confidence he stops at the first bar he walks past, and after receiving a once over by the bouncer, he curves his shoulders and heads in.

The only thing he can really take in is the bodies and stench of sweat – it’s almost overpowering, the noise of so many noises together, and he thinks of Spencer doing this nightly at college in LA and then he doesn’t think about Spencer because tonight he supposed to be trying to be less pathetically sad.

With this in mind, he struggles through the people to get to the bar and orders something he can’t remember once he’s spoken it. He leans against the wood of the counter like he does every morning on the boardwalk – a steadying motion. He hears the clink of a glass being set in front of him and he looks up and pays the bartender in change. He picks up the drink, not recognising it and knowing the taste will probably make his mouth burn. He picks it up anyway, slowly, but then someone is putting hands on his shoulders and his unfortunate nervous system convulses – and he watches his drink go crashing to the ground, breaking and spilling over his shoes.

Ryan jumps back to assess the damage, and some people from down the bar have stopped to glance at him only to quickly return to their own world. However, the someone who startled Ryan in the first place is standing close, mouth opening and closing in what must be apologies if his facial expression is anything to go by, but Ryan can’t hear anything he’s saying.

It’s Brendon from the smoothie bar who is right there, in tightly fitted jeans and a shirt that is two sizes too small, kind of like Ryan’s own shirts. His hair is pushed back off his eyes with sweat and Ryan absently thinks he looks kind of endearing as he shouts different forms of “Shit, fuck shit, Ryan, I am _so_ sorry.”

Ryan shakes his head and finally bends down to start picking up pieces of glass, and Brendon is automatically down there too, his hands carefully lifting pieces and placing them on the stool above. The music is thumping even harder than it was five minutes ago, and Ryan’s pathetic effort of “It’s fine, don’t worry about it” is lost in the sound of dance music.

When they both have as much chunks of glass off the floor as possible and the bartender is looking at them with a glare packed with contempt, Ryan moves to leave so he can avoid any further embarrassment. Brendon grabs his wrist to hold him back -- Ryan involuntarily tenses at the contact – and Brendon immediately lets go. When Ryan looks up at him, Brendon mouth is moving, and he’s standing closer, probably so Ryan can hear what he says.

“Sorry dude, honestly – I just hope it washes out of your jeans.” Ryan glances down at his destroyed shoes and finds the ends of his pants are covered in alcohol too. Fantastic, he thinks, and he thinks of the Laundromat and how he only went there _yesterday_ , but then he’s distracted by Brendon smiling at him, with the most apologetic smile Ryan has seen on him yet.

Ryan, he smiles back, tentatively, and then he is turning on his heel and gliding out of the club as fast as he could go – running like a little boy – but he finds that Brendon seems to have that effect on him. 

 

* * *

 

 

Ryan skips his smoothie visits for the next four days successively. Partly from his still-residing embarrassment and partly because it was ridiculous to spend every day there anyway.

He thinks of Brendon telling William in a mocking voice about the other night and he thinks of them both laughing, and it puts him off visiting for another three days after.

He stays in his tiny apartment and does two assignments way before their due date, and when he goes to classes the teachers tell him his stuff is really good, darker than usual, and then he goes to the bank and picks up his scholarship loans and goes home on the ancient Diego metro and thinks that maybe his writing seems dark because he hasn’t opened his blinds in days.

He wakes up on a Saturday earlier than usual due to the seagulls cawing outside his window, and he finally accepts that he can’t quite picture the shade of Brendon’s stupid brown eyes as easily as he used to.

The thought bugs him enough to get up, open his blinds and rake his hands furiously through his hair in some effort to straighten it out. He rubs sleep out of his eyes, and grabs his messenger bag on automatic.

He’s out the front door of his apartment and crossing the Boulevard when his stomach rumbles pointedly, but he ignores it, focuses on his pathway to the boardwalk. People are out, to his surprise, but it’s mostly sunken-eyed college kids who never went to bed last night anyway. Ryan thinks it must be six or seven at the latest. Brendon works early every morning, something Ryan was quick to realise.

This faithful knowledge lets him down when he gets to Gelateria Smoothies and William is the only one he can see behind the counter, cleaning the blender in a half-hearted fashion. Ryan panics and his mind runs through a bunch of scenarios – Brendon got fired, Brendon quit, Brendon moved away to Michigan and left no trace – how many days had he avoided the hut? He never even got to –

William looks up, then, and smiles in his (as Ryan has come to learn) usual smirk. “Hey,” he calls through the open walls, “You comin’ in or just are you gonna stare at me from the walkway?”

Ryan shakes his head and goes in anyway, tells his stupid heart to stop beating so fast as he stops at the counter. His voice sounds rough and dry and it’s obvious he only just pulled himself from bed to stagger down here but he doesn’t care.

“You don’t… you don’t know where Brendon is… do you?”

William laughs like he sees right through Ryan and it makes Ryan wince. “Yeah, dude, he’s out with his board. Waves are killin’ this morning so I took over for him.”

He impulsively spins his head and peers out at the ocean – there’s several surfers out there now, but he can’t see Brendon, although he didn’t really expect to, not from here. When he turns his attention back to William he’s being watched by sharp (slightly paler) brown eyes.

Ryan tries to shrug it off. “Didn’t know he could surf,” he points out uselessly.

William looks like he wants to say something sarcastic, like, _“Well, of course you don’t because you don’t know him”_ but he refrains, lifts his eyebrows instead, throws his cleaning rag down by the sink.

“Yeah, he’s good at it too.” He leans his hip against the counter and crosses his arms. “Don’t know how, seeing as the kid is from Utah, and all.”

Utah. Ryan stores this in head along with the admittedly small amount of information he knows about Brendon. William is still giving him a calculated look, and Ryan looks up at the menu above so he doesn’t have to meet his gaze. It’s a pointless gesture because Ryan and William both already know what he wants, what he orders each time.

“Banana nut, yeah?”

Ryan looks back down and nods, too quickly, and hands over the three dollars he had grown accustomed to spending on most given mornings. He’s had to cut down on luxury items like penne pasta and in-date bread, but it was a sacrifice he had been willing to make.

William doesn’t say anything when he hands the change back and starts up the machines. When he holds his hand out to give Ryan the drink, he smirks one last time and says “He’s further down, closer to the rocks and the pier.”

So William does see right through him, then.

The air outside is still unheated and the sky is overcast but the waves are crashing into the sand, more so than usual. The beach is busy with surfers and people watching, despite it being so early.

He does see Brendon, eventually, and he’s clearly out alone. He has a wetsuit on and Ryan can see all the way from the boardwalk that his hair is plastered all over his face, his cheeks pink from cool water and exertion.

Ryan slumps against the wooden railing, drops his shoulder bag onto the gravel and curls his fingers around the smoothie cup. Brendon stands up and the waves carry him back up until he’s gliding along them, water pushing and the board pushing right back. The wave eventually crashes and Brendon falls, and Ryan watches him sit back up and start the cycle again.

He thinks about what would happen if he hopped the railing and climbed down the dunes, if he walked up to the foreshore and Brendon sat back on the surfboard to talk to him. Everyone else on the beach seemed to have people around them -- Brendon was distanced from the others. He wondered if Brendon even _would_ talk to him.

The sky was the colour of milk, still, and the ocean was blue and green and turquoise, and Brendon’s surfboard was bright yellow, and Ryan thinks if he took out his pen and starting writing about this, right now, it wouldn’t be dark at all.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a Wednesday when he finds himself out on the beach, bare toes sinking into the sand as he walks down the shoreline, only barely touching the water as it breaches the land. His shoes are in one hand and he denim cut offs don’t need to be rolled up.

On Wednesdays his class usually started at noon and he leaves campus at three, every single week, but today they all showed up for the poetry seminar to discover their professor had left a note to say he wasn’t around. Ryan thought an email to notify them would have been polite – he had dragged himself into the city for no reason at all.

So when he got off the metro after it’s slow, painful journey home, he slumped down onto the beach, which looked quiet and inviting in the mid-afternoon stretch of sun.  

Even with the sound of the waves and the gulls overhead he can hear his phone going off in his back pocket, but was too tired and he didn’t feel like talking to Spencer. Spencer who hadn’t called in days and days – it bothered Ryan endlessly and in his own childish act of stubbornness he ignores it. Let Spencer get on with his life for a while without the burden that was his lonely best friend back in Diego. Ryan can see him talking to his friends about him, making hand gestures and saying “Yeah, Ryan, he’s like this crazy friend I had in Diego and he doesn’t have any friends so I gotta call him and-” Ryan stops his train of thought abruptly.

A bunch of smaller kids he vaguely recognised from his apartment complex run down onto the beach from the rocks, screaming and yelling and pulling at each other’s arms. Ryan takes it as his cue to leave, and when he passes them one or two of the kids slow down and give each other pointed looks, look back at him, and run off again. He hears one of them say brashly “ _That’s_ the guy that Mom was talking about, she said he was too skinny.”

Ryan’s digs his nails into his palms and he keeps going up the backshore, puts his shoes back on and scrabbles up the hill to the boardwalk.

In his haste to be back in the confines of his apartment he forgoes his usual path and he carefully slips down an alleyway between a grill bar and a surf shop. There’s dumpsters to dodge past and he narrowly avoids stepping on a tabby cat. He only just glances up when he stops dead in his tracks. Brendon is slumped on the ground with his back against the side of the grill bar wall, his hands covering his face. His shoulders are shaking slightly like he’s crying, and Ryan has to make a two second decision – he could turn around right now and leave before Brendon knows he was there, or he could stay, despite not knowing what he’d say or what he’d do.

He’s never really known what to do, though.

Brendon makes the decision for him when he removes his hands and blinks rapidly up at him. Ryan watches as it registers with Brendon how he must look to Ryan, and he starts wiping his cheeks with his arm as subtle as he can. Ryan sighs.

“Hey,” he says, as softly as he can. “Are you, uh, are you okay?”

Brendon looks like he’s not going to answer that for a second as he continues scrabbling at his face, but then his mouth opens and he laughs, sort of hysterical and empty and it makes Ryan more concerned than he was a second ago.

“Yeah, I’m fine, ha, oh god, you really don’t need to see this.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Ryan says, which is meant to be a joke but it’s lost with Brendon sudden eyes on him like he can’t really believe he’s still there. Ryan can’t believe it himself, so he goes a step further and shuffles over to Brendon’s spot by the wall and sinks down to the ground too, his long and ungainly legs in front of him.

Brendon starts rambling, like he did before in the club, a stream of, “You seriously - you don’t have to, it’s fine, I’m fine.”

Ryan can feel Brendon’s body heat coming off him in waves and maybe if the generator of the restaurant wasn’t whirring behind them he might be able to hear Brendon’s heart beating. He sure as hell can hear his own.

“You want to talk about it? I know you don’t really know me and vice versa, but if you needed to someone to talk to, uh, I’m here right now.”

Brendon stops rubbing his face in his futile attempts to remove traces of tears and pauses for so long that Ryan is convinced he isn’t going to say anything at all.

“I just, do you ever feel like you’re the biggest fuck up to ever live?” He says it in a rush but still with an angry undertone and Ryan glances up at him quickly, but doesn’t reply. Maybe Brendon somehow already knows that answer.

“My parents,” Brendon says, his words sharp and bitter -- “Won’t pick up the phone anymore. Things weren’t great between us but now they don’t even want to speak to me. I mean, that’s really fucking ironic right? The runaway son tries to communicate with his parents who won’t _pick_ _up_ the phone?!” Ryan thinks about his dismissal of Spencer’s call and immediately withers with guilt.

Brendon’s hands are curled into fists on the gravel but Ryan can still see them shaking. Without thinking about it he reaches out with one hand and places it on Brendon’s forearm, stilling the tremors as his long, spidery fingers meet Brendon’s skin.

The generator beside them is still thrumming but Ryan’s brain blocks it out, somehow.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t know my parents either. Haven’t for a while, really.” He shoots a look up at Brendon, who seems to have relaxed with this information. His eyes are shut and his head is against the wall. “Oh yeah?” he replies belatedly.

“Yeah,” Ryan mumbles but it’s enough for Brendon.

“Thank you,” Brendon says, low and quiet. “And I’m sorry about this.”

Ryan takes his hand off Brendon’s arm when he realises how long it’s been there. And Brendon is so _close_ , but he pointedly ignores the way his stomach is clenching and unclenching.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and wishes he could say something more useful, something more profound and comforting but nothing comes.

The English major who is almost always short of words.

They both move to get up at the same time, and neither of them say anything more. Ryan turns in the direction of the busy street beyond and Brendon turns to go back onto the boardwalk.

Ryan stops and watches Brendon walk in the opposite direction, his shoulders hunched and still as vulnerable looking as he was down on the ground. But then he turns his head and looks over his shoulder slightly, and he smiles in surprise when he sees Ryan is looking too.

Even in the narrow, sheltered alleyway the sunset casts everything in a glow and it reaches Brendon’s smile, and Ryan breathes out a sigh of relief once Brendon’s on his way again.

Everything sort of felt okay when Brendon smiled like that.

 

* * *

 

 

Two or three or four days later he walks down the promenade with some trepidation, his messenger banging insistently against his knee as he paces. He needed to get the bus soon, but it also left him enough time to drop in to the Gelateria hut, if he didn’t chicken out by the time he got there.

Brendon is behind the till when he stops in front of it and he can hear the radio playing something tinny and terrible and the scene is almost eerily identical to the day he first bought a smoothie here.

He heads in anyway, and is unnerved to find that Brendon’s usual smile and enthusiastic greeting has been replaced by a careful “Hi” and slightly narrowed eyes. Had he done something to offend him the other day? Ryan thinks back rapidly, but all could remember was Brendon smiling in the alleyway and he didn’t seem annoyed then.

His thoughts are interrupted by a cool “Do you want anything, then?”

Ryan squints his eyes confusedly. “Yeah, uh, yeah, I want a smoothie?”

“Oh right yeah, a smoothie,” Brendon mumbles as he taps furiously at the cash register screen. His eyes are sunken into his face and his hair isn’t as shiny as it always is but he still looks good to Ryan and it unsettles him more so than before.

Ryan pays him, slowly and still confused, and when Brendon leaves to turn on the blender he’s left unsure whether to sit down or to get out of here as soon as possible.

But then he thinks of the bus into the city and school and he knows that if he left now he’d be worrying about the whole thing all day, and probably wouldn’t dare step foot in here again until he knew William was definitely on shift instead.

So he sits down at his usual table, the cheap plastic booth seats squeaking under his jeans, and he throws his bag down beside him. Brendon walks out from behind the counter and his face is suddenly set in fixed determination as he sets the drink down in front of Ryan and sits on the seat opposite.

Ryan looks at him nervously, waiting, and Brendon says, almost whining, “Do you _like_ torturing me?”

He loses Ryan there already. “Excuse me?”

Brendon closes his eyes and bangs his head down on the table. His hair is messier as he raises his head again, and he looks completely serious when he sticks out in hand and says, “Hi, I’m Brendon Urie.”

Ryan shakes his hand, manages to choke out “…Okay. I’m Ryan. Ryan Ross.”

Brendon nods, places his hands flat on the table. “I’m 20,” he continues, “I lived here by the beach for a year, I’m originally from a tiny town in Utah, I work at this stupid smoothie place, I surf in my spare time, I’m saving up to take classes so I can teach people to surf someday.”

He looks up into Ryan’s eyes, and Ryan can see the colour better than he could with the till in between them, or tears coming out of Brendon’s eyes.

“And I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, so I apologise.”

He leans foward and reaches across the table to take Ryan’s face in both his hands, and Ryan stops breathing for a moment until Brendon’s mouth is on his and he couldn’t even breathe if he wanted to.

He goes with it, kisses him back and takes himself out of his head before he wakes up to realise that this isn’t real and he’s dreaming.

It takes Ryan a second to process that Brendon isn’t kissing him anymore, and he opens his eyes and to find Brendon an inch away, both hands still cradling his face. His breath comes out like warm puffs of air on Ryan’s nose and that’s maybe when Ryan realises that this is, indeed, real. When he talks, it barely rises above a whisper.

“I’m Ryan Ross, I’m 21, I’ve lived in Diego my whole life, but then I moved out closer to the beach, I put off college for two years and finally started in community college this year,  I live entirely off financial aid and I really need to catch a bus, like, now.”

Brendon smiles, thankfully, and Ryan presses forward and kisses him again.

 

* * *

 

 

The wind carries the waves up and down, and the palm trees above him sway almost peacefully. He’s hunched over the wooden railing again, watching the surfers and the seagulls swoop down to the beach one by one, poke around on the sand and then take off again.

The wind leaves goosebumps on his bare arms but he ignores it, doesn’t feel it because the air is still warm, possibly unnaturally so for a November morning.

His phone rings, and his long fingers pull it out of his pocket. He doesn’t look at the caller ID before he puts it up to his ear.

“Hey, man.”

“What’s up, Ryan?” Spencer’s voice sounds light and happy, like maybe he wasn’t expecting Ryan to pick up but he’s glad that he did.

“Not much, how are you?”

“I’m alright. I’ve got like, three papers due for three different classes this week that I have not done so I’m stressing but it’s been okay.”

Ryan makes pitying noises and Spencer breaks in with a “So tell me, how are you doing these days?”

Ryan can see Brendon look in his direction from his spot out on the surf, clutching his board tightly. Brendon waves his hand high so Ryan can see, and Ryan gives him a thumbs up in reply. Brendon’s good out there -- the water is natural to him. It kind of makes Ryan want to learn to surf. Maybe if Brendon taught him, someday.

“Ryan? How are you doing? Are you okay?”

Brendon is climbing up the wave again on his board, his knees bent, and he stands up straighter as the wave gets larger. Ryan’s used to watching him by now, but his heart still speeds up when Brendon finally disappears under the water, body submerged.

He comes back up though, laughing, with the water soaking his hair and body and Ryan smiles back even though he doesn’t think Brendon can see it from the ocean.

“I guess I’m okay,” he eventually replies. Brendon sits up on his board and starts to paddle back to the shore, back to Ryan, and he’s glad the boardwalk is empty so no one can see him as he smiles again to himself. “Maybe better than okay.”

He only hopes that Spencer knows that he’s finally telling the truth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title belongs to Panic. Mission Beach is, in fact, a real place in Southern California. Also, Gelateria smoothies is not an original creation. I don't think there is anything else here I have ripped off. Lastly, thank you for reading!


End file.
